New Doctor Who star Matt Smith has decided the Time Lord needs a new assistant – ideally, a bird.

The actor got his inspiration from a pirates sequence in the film Pink Panther starring Peter Sellers.

‘I think with this Doctor, you never know what he’s going to do or say,
or what he’s gong to turn up in in the morning,’ says Matt, 28.

‘I’d love to get some sort of pretend parrot on my shoulder because Peter Sellers is my hero. I’m working on it.’

Tom Baker famously expressed interest a companion who was a talking cabbage… and frankly, something other than the jeopardy-friendly screaming-girl companion would make a nice change.

I understand why, from the prospective of selling a TV show, it makes sense to have a sexy young woman around for the Doctor to rescue occassionally (or even to rescue him once in a while). But, you know, the Doctor is supposed to be an alien, and not an ape-descended priamte (though he may look like one on the outside). If he can’t have an actual non-Earth alien companion, couldn’t he at least have an Earthly nonhuman one?